THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409140121
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02B EDITION: BAYSIDE
SOURCE: BY LAURIE ZIEGLER, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
Karen James always assumed that if a hurricane were roaring toward Hampton Roads her family would nestle their four horses safely in the barn at their Charity Neck Road farm.
She knows now that doing so would be a deadly mistake.
James was one of more than 80 area horse owners and several city officials who last week attended a talk and slide show on hurricane planning presented by the Sunshine State Horse Council. Veterans of Hurricane Andrew, which killed an estimated 1,000 horses in 1992, showed some disturbing pictures, listed several safety precautions and left the group with a warning.
``You are at risk,'' said Mary Lou Ward of Arcadia, Fla. ``We were at risk. Nobody told us. Nobody said, you guys are going to a have a problem. You need to have a plan.''
Virginia Beach is home to an estimated 2,500 horses, according to the Virginia Beach Cooperative Extension Office, which co-sponsored the presentation with Virginia Beach 4-H and the Tidewater Horse Council. Horses are a $500,000 industry in Hampton Roads and the numbers are increasing, said extension agent Joe Hoffenberger.
Don Ward, executive director of the Sunshine State Horse Council, and his wife, Mary Lou, the council's secretary, illustrated the force of Andrew with pictures of telephone poles broken like toothpicks, streets lined with 10-foot-high piles of debris and homes leveled.
The same thing happened to barns. Mary Lou Ward narrated slides of one barn blown to bits, another that had imploded from the vacuum effect of high winds, and a concrete stable that was flattened. Rule No. 1, she said, is close the barn and let your horses weather the storm in the pasture where they can use their instincts to survive.
``If that barn comes down (with the horses inside),'' she said, ``they have no options.''
But just because owners turn their horses out, she said, doesn't mean they shouldn't pay attention to reinforcing their barns. Hurricane strapping prevents the building from tearing apart and becoming wind-borne debris. ``Debris causes 90 percent of the problems,'' Ward said.
Woven wire fencing is preferable to boards because not only is it less likely to break apart, it can actually trap blowing objects. When constructing, use materials such as sheet metal roofing, rather than tiles or shingles, because it is easier for a horse to avoid one large moving object than hundreds of little ones. ``A shingle driven by a 200 mph wind - that's going to go through him like a bullet,'' Ward said.
With a click of the projector, the audience twice found themselves staring at a picture of a dead horse. One, wandering loose in the chaos that followed the storm, had been hit by a car. The other had sought refuge with 47 pasture mates in a ditch, and was electrocuted when an overhead power line fell in. ``Power lines run across easements that contain drainage ditches, one of the places horses went to shelter themselves,'' Mary Lou Ward said.
They admitted, however, that no measures can guarantee your horse's safety. After Hurricane Andrew, one horse was found 22 feet up in a tree. ``What you can do,'' Mary Lou Ward said, ``is stack the odds in your favor.''
Other tips include:
Evacuation by horse trailer may only be safe 72 hours before the storm, because horse trailers are unstable in high winds.
Buy a hand pump for your well. Bury containers such as trash cans or canoes so they will stay put and can collect water.
Plant only native vegetation. Exotics may not withstand the winds.
Have a three-week supply of food and water for your animals.
Keep current photos and identification records on your animals, and turn your horses out with an identification tag.
Lobby local officials to allow household pets in shelters. Have your animals vaccinated, have leashes and carriers for them and make arrangements for them ahead of time if shelters won't take them.
To illustrate the need for organized help following a storm, the Wards showed slides of people operating on a dog by flashlight and a man aiming a pistol at the head of a pony with a broken leg. ``We didn't have euthanasia drugs,'' Mary Lou Ward said. ``A lot of people are horrified that we could shoot a horse. We didn't have any alternative. . . . The chaos was beyond belief.''
To remedy that situation, the Wards have started a Disaster Animal Response Team in Florida to help rescue, treat, evacuate and house livestock after any type of natural disaster. Volunteers receive 40 hours of training in areas such as large animal emergency medicine, animal identification and handling, and CPR.
Hoffenberger said the extension office would like to start a similar program here. Already, 32 people have signed up to get the group going.
Local horse owners left the program buzzing with ideas to help their animals survive a storm. Karen James, who is preparing to build more fencing on her property, has decided to use wire mesh for the job, and she's considering hurricane strapping for an addition to the barn.
Hoffenberger, who has two horses at his home in Pungo, said he's changed his plans for where he'll leave his horses in a storm. In the past, he would have put them in his back pasture, next to an electrical wire. Now he plans to use the front pasture.
In conjunction with a trail ride planned Oct. 8 at Fort Story, horse owners can get an identification picture taken of their horse next to a chalkboard listing the owner's name, address and phone number. A nominal fee will be charged. Photos will be taken from 9 to 11 a.m. MEMO: For more information about the response team or the identification
photos, call the extension service at 427-4769. The extension office
also has literature on protecting household pets in a storm. by CNB